1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus for recording the information such as a still picture or voice on a recording medium such as a semiconductor memory.
2. Related Background Art
Electronic still cameras for recording still pictures or voices on a magnetic disk known as a still video floppy as the recording medium have been available on the market. However, electronic still cameras using a memory card having a solid memory device such as DRAM, SRAM or EEPROM as the recording medium have been proposed.
In this type of camera, when the solid memory device is used as the recording medium, a method of managing the recording area is used in which the recording area is divided into a plurality of regions (clusters) each having a predetermined recording capacity. That is, the image, voice or data is recorded in a unit of cluster. For the image, a predetermined number of clusters are assigned, while for the voice, an arbitrary number of clusters corresponding to its length are assigned.
Thus, in a conventional example, an arbitrary number of clusters are assigned to record the voice, such that the number of unrecorded clusters is not equal to an integral multiple of the number of clusters necessary to record the image. Hence, for example, there may possibly occur an uneconomical situation such that the image can not be recorded because of the shortage of only one cluster. Also, there may occur a case such that a great number of clusters are used for the voice, so that the expected number of images can not be recorded.
With the electronic still cameras previously described, a method of managing the storage area of the memory card is used in, which the storage area is divided into a plurality of blocks (hereinafter referred to as clusters) each having a predetermined recording capacity, into which the image, voice and data can be recorded.
However, since, for example, when the image and the voice are recorded, associated with each other, the user can select the compression methods (modes) separately for the image and the voice, the user may have a feeling of disorder at the reproduction due to a difference between the compression ratios of the image and the voice.